YuGiOh! Curse of the Seal
by Mendrel
Summary: Two young men must overcome implecable odds in order to save everything they hold dear. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1: In the Beginning

I do not take ownership of the yu-gi-oh characters that are presented in this story.

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Chapter 1: In the Beginning

The sun beat down upon the red clay of the school's tennis courts. As Tom looked up he didn't see a cloud in the sky. It was an absolutely beautiful day, at least it would be if he wasn't sweating to death on the track.

It was gym class, and Mr. Smith turned a great sport into a death wish. He challenged every single individual of the class to get better, and if they didn't they paid the price, two laps around the track, and on a day like today, no one wanted to screw up. Of course, no one wanted to participate either, making a bad situation worse, even for Tom. He was thin with sort sandy brown hair, and to his good fortune, had a great endurance. Unfortunately that endurance was wearing thin.

His best friend Alex, on the other hand, was having a difficult time coping with the heat and the demands of Mr. Smith. Alex was slightly shorter than Tom, but had a slightly bulky build, and pitch black hair that matched his equally dark brown eyes. Both of them were sweating up a storm, but neither wanted to give in and have to answer to the lash of Mr. Smith's punishment.

Then there was the school bully, Steve, whom was also in their gym class. This young man was rather muscular, and also rather stupid, which came to no surprise to either Alex or Tom. His straight black hair and ice blue eyes gave him an almost gothic look, which only helped to further intimidate classmates. He seemed to have no difficulty in the heat of the day.

All three just also happened to be in the same game of tennis, along with the school's most beautiful girl, who had to be on Steve's team, leaving Alex and Tom together, which is how they preferred it. The girl stood only head shorter than Tom and had short straight brown hair that stopped at her chin, deep brown eyes, and a very slender and attractive body, and to top it all off had the most angelic name, Kiana. Kiana was currently on the tennis team, giving both Tom and Alex an extreme disadvantage having to go against both her and Steve, who was unaffected by the temperature.

"Hey Tommy-boy!" Steve called out in an attempt to intimidate him, "Maybe you should go sit down. You don't look so hot!"

"I wouldn't be talkin' if I were you." Tom shot back. "From this angle, you look like a buck-toothed gorilla."

This instantly got a rise out of Steve as he smashed his racket into the ball, sending it straight for Tom's head. Instinctively, Tom ducked in just enough time to feel Alex's racket sweep right across where his head had been, smashing into the ball and sending it soaring back towards Steve where it bounced in bounds, giving them yet another point.

"Thanks man." Tom said, getting back to his full upright position.  
"No problem." Alex answered, "Buck-toothed gorilla?"

"Hey, it was the best I could come up with." Tom replied as he readied himself for yet another test of his endurance, but just as he had gotten into the proper position, Mr. Smith blew hard into his whistle, letting the class know that the hour was over and they were to change immediately and head home.

"Just wait until tomorrow Tommy-boy!" Steve snarled, pointing his massive index finger at Tom, and with that he headed up towards the gym.

"Hey, great game guys!" Kiana smiled. "That's the best work out I've had in a long time on the courts."

"It was our pleasure." Alex replied. "Sorry you had to get teamed up with Steve like that."

"Yea, maybe next time you'll get a better partner." Tom added as the three began to walk up towards the school together.

"I don't mind it. It's just when he goes off on his little tangents about how he's the best duelist in the town that annoy me." Kiana grumbled, slipping on her Duel Disk.

"So, you did win." Tom grinned, removing his from within the depths of his back pack.

"Yup," She grinned, "I beat the snot out of some guy trying to use a Water-attribute deck."

"Water attribute?" Alex questioned, placing his around his wrist as well. "I've never heard of someone using a water attribute deck before."

"I'm not surprised." Tom began, "It's almost unheard of for one to make it to the finals, and those are the only decks that they report."

"He was an exceptional duelist." Kiana replied, "It's just my fairies beat him to the punch."

Alex and Tom hung on her every word as she described the duel from beginning to end. Her hair waving in erratic motions from the continual movement of her arms as she was describing the battle.

With the latest in holo-technology on their wrists, the Duel Disk allowed duelists to have actual battles. Since its creation, physical violence had dropped by 80 nation-wide. The only problem was, that everyone was now resolving disputes with dueling, especially teens.

"But I don't want to bore you, and I need to get home right away, so I'll see you guys tomorrow in gym." Kiana smiled.

"Definitely." Tom nodded, "We wouldn't dream of missing it."

"Great." She chuckled, finally turning to leave the two standing at the entry way to the school.

"Let's go Romeo," Alex said, grabbing Tom by the arm, "we need to get our shit and get home."


	2. Chapter 2: The Good, The Bad, and the Du...

Chapter 2: The Good, The Bad, and the Dueling

As Alex and Tom walked out of the school, they were already in deep discussion about different dueling strategies that would work well with their types of decks. Tom favored a Spellcaster deck, with the Dark Magician being the primary focus. Alex, on the other hand, liked to duel with a Dragon deck, his favorite card, the Blue Eyes White Dragon, reigning supreme. They had lost the god cards that they had a few years prior to a couple of creeps in a duel.

"So, you gonna duel her?" Alex asked, poking his friend in the ribs with his elbow.

"I don't know." Tim responded, "I've never actually seen anyone duel successfully with a Fairy deck."

His eyes were now focused on his Duel Disk. It was the newest design called the Chaos Duel Disk. It was a bluish-green color, and had no visible dueling platforms when it was retracted. With the push of a button, however, the device would activate, releasing a side compartment which unraveled a very impressive looking dueling field. The five slots slid out of the primary compartment, creating a menacing looking tail at the end of it, with the field card zone in a hidden compartment on the right side. The magic and trap card zone resided not on the back of the device closest to the duelist's arm, but on the opposite end.

The two friends continued down the street talking about their different duels. Two remained fresh in their minds, however. Tom faced his counterpart. A man who called himself the 'Master of Magicians'. His real name was Tim, and from what he remembered about the news articles and segments about him, he tied in the world championship with a man named Allen, but he along with two others, were the downfall of the men who started stealing the god cards.

Alex, on the other hand, faced off against Allen, the 'Dragon Master' of the dueling world. He faced Allen, just as Tom faced Tim, in the 2nd round out of 9 rounds of the tournament. Both Tom and himself were eliminated as if they were standing still. They still couldn't believe they had the honor of dueling such great people in the tournament, especially since those two were the only ones who were able to control the gods so well.

Suddenly, their chatter was interrupted by a woman's scream. The two friends exchanged glances, almost as if they were trying to figure out if they had actually heard what they thought they did. When another scream rang out, the two burst into action, running as fast as they could down the street towards the woman's voice.

As quickly as they had heard the screams, a thought ran through Alex's mind.

"Hey, Tom," Alex began through pants of breath, "Didn't Kiana head this way?"

"Yea, she did." Tom responded, "That's what's got me so worried."

As the two friends continued in a fast sprint down the street, the screams became more understandable. They weren't just shrill shrieks of terror anymore, they were cries for help and pleas for whomever was behind it to stop what they were doing.

Coming closer they were able to see who all was involved. The female was none other than Kiana. She was laying on the ground in a position that would suggest she was shoved or hit to the point where she would land on the ground. The male figure that was rummaging through her things was Steve. He kept screaming things at her about Tom and Alex, and how she was a tramp to be hanging around with them.

It got to the point where Tom put all his strength into speeding up, and in an instant he slammed head on into Steve, knocking him to the ground and Tom himself barely being able to keep his balance.

"What the hell Corban!? You want a piece of this?" Steve raged, getting to his feet.

"Actually…yea I do." Tom responded, readying his Duel Disk.

"A duel? C'mon Corban. Grow some balls and fight me like a man." Steve scoffed.

"Beat me in a duel and I will." Tom remarked a little too confidently. He wanted to challenge Steve's ego enough to get him into a duel, but not sound so arrogant as to make him realize he's walking into a trap. Tom knew Steve had never dueled using his Duel Disk, primarily because he had only won it at the old fashioned type of tournaments giving them out as prizes last week.

The Duel Disk not only simulated the monsters, but it also brought them, in a sense, into reality. The holograms were so real that when you were struck by them, you actually felt pain. As your lifepoints decreased, so did your will to continue fighting. In a close duel down to the wire, both opponents would be so bruised from the duel that they wouldn't want to fight, but Tom wasn't about to give Steve the opportunity to hit him. He wanted to make sure he was perfectly able to fight if he had to, and leave Steve as weak as he possibly could, in order to get himself, Kiana and Alex out of there before violence broke out.

"So what do you say?" Tom challenged. "Beat me in a duel, and I'll give you the fight of your life, but if you lose, you return the cards you stole from Kiana and leave her alone for good."

"Hmm…how about I just pummel the shit out of you right now and forget the duel?" Steve remarked, coming in to follow through on his threat.

"If you win I'll date you." Kiana blurted out, immediately stopping both of the men in their tracks.

"What?" Steve questioned, completely stunned by her outburst.

"You heard me," She began, "If you beat Tom in a duel, I'll go out with you. That's what you want isn't it? So, do it and I'll do whatever you ask me to."

A sinister smile formed over Steve's ugly face. "Alright." He said, "You've got yourself a deal."

"Kiana what are you doing?!" Tom whispered as the two men took their places opposite each other on the sidewalk.

"Getting us out of here." She answered just as quietly, "Just don't lose."

And with that, her and Alex picked out a spot of grass and sat down, eager to see the duel unfold before them, and find out what the outcome was going to be.


	3. Chapter 3: Magic Trick

Chapter 3: Magic Trick

The duelists took their appropriate places and after deciding that Steve would go first, began their duel.

"Alright punk, I'm gonna beat you so bad it will send you back to the stone age!" Steve threatened as he began his turn.

"I'm going to start by setting two cards face-down, and summon La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp (1800/1000)!"

Instantly the holographic images of the two cards appeared in front of Steve, in face-down position. Then his genie appeared in a shimmering of light. The green apparition was definitely intimidating, not only in size but appearance. It was extremely muscular, and had gold bands around its neck, biceps and wrists. It's massive head was decorated only with a small blue cap and a long mustache.

"Fine. Since your turn is over," Tom started, beginning his turn now, "I'll set one card face down, and summon Gemini Elf (1900/900) in attack mode!"

His card also appeared on the field in much the same way Steve's face-down cards had. Then his Gemini Elf materialized onto the field, which in fact, was two monsters as the same card. The monsters were really twins working together. The first had long blonde hair and wore a light blue colored outfit with matching gloves that ran up to its elbows. The second had red hair and wore a tight purple uniform. Both possessed strange symbols across their faces that shimmered in gold and green.

"Now Gemini Elf, attack his La Jinn!" Tom cried out, thrusting his hand forward and pointing his finger at its intended target. The elven sisters complied immediately, manifesting large orbs, then launching them forward, smashing into the genie, causing it to burst into thousands of bits which eventually vanished.

The score was now 8000 lifepoints for Tom, and 7900 lifepoints for Steve, but at such a small gap between them anything could happen.

"Alright buddy." Steve said, not particularly disturbed by Tom's decision. "I'll activate one of my face-down cards, Raigeki Break. With this card, I have to discard one card from my hand to destroy one face-up monster on the field. So I'll discard my Man-Eating Treasure Chest (1600/1000) from my hand in order to destroy your Gemini Elf!"

The face-down card instantly stood up, facing Tom. As Steve spoke, his trap card began to glow an eerie white. The instant Steve had finished, and destroyed his monster, a crack of lightning leapt from the trap card and obliterated Tom's Gemini Elf.

"Now that your defenses are gone, I'll summon Opticlops (1800/1700) in attack mode! Opticlops, attack this punk's lifepoints directly!"

"Activate trap! Sakuretsu Armor!" Tom cried out as Steve's monster lunged forward, its muscles churning its massive body forward. It's single eye filled with determination, the sunlight beaming off its deadly horn atop its head.

The trap instantly sprang to life. A shadowy-type creature emerged from it and made contact with Opticlops, instantly creating a massive struggle. The Opticlops struggled with all its might as Tom explained his trap.

"This card negates your attack, and destroys your attacking monster. So say goodbye to your Opticlops."

Suddenly, the shadow gained the upper hand, and sucked the monster back into the trap, right before it obliterated itself, leaving the field clear of monsters.

Steve began to laugh. "You think you've got the upper hand? You walked right into _my_ trap! I wanted you to get rid of those two monsters to make my job easier!"

"What?" Tom stammered. He hadn't thought that Steve wanted him to destroy his monsters. All the duelists he'd gone against did everything in their power to avoid destroying their own monsters, but Steve was taking an entirely new approach to this, and Tom worried about what he could be planning for him.

"Now, I'll finish up my turn by removing my three fiend-type monsters from my graveyard in order to special summon my Dark Necrofear (2200/2800) in defense mode!"

"Good." Tom remarked, "Now that your turn is over, mine can begin."

Drawing he looked down at his hand. There really wasn't anything that could stop his Dark Necrofear from destroying any of his monsters. Their defenses were too low, and their attacks were even lower.

"Alright, I'll set one monster in defense-mode, and then set two cards face-down to end my turn." Tom finished, placing the cards in the card recognition slots on the Duel Disk. Three holographic card images appeared on the ground, two laying vertically and the third laying horizontally in front of the first two.

"That's it? Man, its hard to believe you even made it past the first round in the world championship." Steve scoffed as he drew his next card.

"Hmm…this should do nicely." He said as he examined his newly drawn card along with the ones in his hand. "I'll begin by switching my Dark Necrofear into attack-mode, and then summoning a monster known as Giant Orc (2200/0) in attack mode."

Placing the card on the monster zone slot on his Duel Disk, he watched as the monster appeared before his eyes. The name given to the monster fit perfectly. The creature stood at least seven and a half feet tall, with razor sharp teeth, and a large leg bone as a type of club. He had a large gut, but more impressive were the large muscles that adorned his body. Deep red eyes and a bluish-gray skin made this creature appear just as dangerous as his attack power did.

"Now, Dark Necrofear, destroy his face-down monster!" Steve commanded. The monster jumped to action, lunging itself at Tom's monster. The creature then pulled back its slender arm and stretched out its long bony fingers festooned with razor sharp nails at the ends. As it came down upon the creature, the hologram revealed itself to be a Mystical Elf. Its green dress and blue skin immediately became billions of bits of data when Dark Necrofear ripped through it with its claws.

"Then I guess I'll activate the magic card Pandemonium!" Steve proclaimed as he placed the card into the appropriate field card slot.

"Pandemonium?" Alex began.

"What is that?" Kiana inquired, slightly worried about Alex's reaction to the card.

"Well," he began, "It's a card that is mostly used with Archfiend monsters. It makes it so you don't have to pay lifepoints to summon or keep them on the field, but Steve has yet to use a single Archfiend monster."

"So what does that mean?" Kiana asked, watching the field go from the pristine green lawns and well kept streets, into a war zone. The grass died, and the ground twisted and shook until there was nothing left but mangled mud. The streets and sidewalks instantly cracked and broke upward causing many of the cars that were parked nearby to roll out of their parking spots slightly.

"It means Tom is in real trouble if Steve is doing what I think he is." Alex finished, obviously not wanting to continue to explain any more to Kiana.

"My turn now." Tom said confidently, even though he had little reason to be. With his only good monster being the Dark Magician residing in his hand, he had little to hope for, and his newly drawn card wasn't helping any.

"I'll activate the magic card, Pot of Greed." Tom announced as he activated his card. "With this card's effect, I can draw two extra cards from my deck and add them to my hand."

He examined his hand closely. It was a Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands and . Since he only had one light attribute and one earth attribute monster in his graveyard however, he wasn't able to special summon it yet.

"I'll set one monster in defense-mode and end my turn." Tom sighed.

"That's it? You took that long and wasted your Pot of Greed just to set a monster?" Steve chuckled. "You must not have a whole lot of good cards in your hand then."

Steve paused for a moment sorting out his cards. "Good. Then it shouldn't take too long to destroy you. First, I'll summon Warrior of Zera (1600/1600) in defense mode. Then I'll have my Dark Necrofear attack your face-down monster."

When Steve finished placing his monster on the Duel Disk, its sensors sprang to life and projected its image onto the battlefield. The monster was impressively tall and wore a green helmet adorned with two red horns. He had a long red scarf billowing behind him from around his neck, and a large green piece of armor protecting his chest. His arms also had the same green colored armor, where as his legs simply were protected by blue pants. He wielded a wicked sword, which due to his defense position left it in its sheath, and a whip that resided in front of him on the ground.

Dark Necrofear leapt forth to take out the face-down monster just as it had the previous turn, except this time Tom was ready with something up his sleeve. "I'll activate one of my face-down cards now. It's a trap card called Widespread Ruin. With this card I can destroy your strongest attack point monster, but since your Giant Orc and Dark Necrofear are the same attack strength, I think I'll destroy your Giant Orc." Tom finished, watching as Dark Necrofear tore through his Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands. Then, just behind the attacking monster, the Giant Orc was caught in a massive explosion that decimated the creature into nothing more than data bits.

"My Giant Orc!" Steve cried out in anger. "Your going to pay Corban!"

"Not as badly as your about to Steve-o." Tom remarked, "Your forgetting about my Manju's special ability. When its flip-summoned, or normal summoned I can retrieve one Ritual Spell card or one Ritual Monster card from my deck and at it to my hand. So I'll get my Shinato, King of a Higher Plane!"

"How can you do that? It wasn't flip-summoned!" Steve shrieked.

"Actually, whenever you attack a face-down monster your flip-summoning the creature. So I thank you for your help."

Steve cursed silently under his breath as he ended his turn.

"To begin my turn, I shall activate my spell card Shinato's Ark! Then I'll send my Dark Magician and my second Mystical Elf to the graveyard in order to summon Shinato, King of a Higher Plane (3300/3000)!"

A huge ark appeared above Tom's head. As he offered up his monsters, their images floated gracefully into the ark. Then in one swift move, the door shut and reopened revealing Shinato himself. The creature had three sets of wings and a beautiful golden crown festooned atop its head. Shinato's entire body was blue, and wore a robe so purely white, it was almost blinding to look at.

"W…what!?" Steve stuttered. "How…how did you manage to get such a powerful monster!?"

"A gift." Tom replied, looking over to Alex and Kiana, "from some friends."

"Your Shinato doesn't scare me Corban! Show me what you've got!" Steve rebelled. He was determined to destroy the little worm, even if it meant losing some of his best cards in the process.

Tom quickly thought to himself. He knew Dark Necrofear had more than one special ability but he couldn't quite remember if it was when a monster destroyed it that its effect was activated, or if it was when one of his card's effects activated it.

"Alright, Shinato attack his Dark Necrofear!" Tom commanded.

Tom's monster took little time in carrying out the attack. It immediately brought its hands towards the middle of its chest, focusing its energy into a single ball of light that began to grow immensely. After only a few seconds, the glowing orb of energy was the size of a basketball. At that moment, Shinato sent the attack straight into the chest of Dark Necrofear, draining away 1100 of Steve's lifepoints.

Now the tides had begun to turn. With Steve at 6900 and Tom at 7900, the match was still close, but Tom had considerable lead, especially since he had the strongest monster on the field now.

"Is that it?" Steve asked as he recovered from the lifepoint damage, his voice revealing his vulnerability at that moment.

"Not quite. I think I'll set one more card face-down before I end my turn.

"Good." Steve said, beginning his turn. "Since I only have two cards in my hand, I'll set the first one, and offer up my Warrior of Zera in order to special summon my Mazera DeVille (2800/2300)!"

The projections appeared on the field immediately. The monster was huge, with even more of the green armor than the previous monster had. This one possessed massive armored claws, along with a menacing one-piece helmet, cuirass-type of armor. The back of it curved out, creating a wing-like appearance to it, with red horns protruding out of the helmet.

"If I have Pandemonium active on my side of the field, you must discard three cards from your hand when this monster is summoned." Steve finished, then immediately cringed when he saw that Tom only possessed one card in his hand.

"Fine." Tom replied, sending his final card to the graveyard.

"Since your monster is clearly stronger than mine, I will simply end my turn." Steve finished, a devilish look in his eye.

_I don't like this._ Tom thought as he drew his next card. _He intentionally summoned a weaker monster than my Shinato…granted, he didn't have any other monsters…but I should still be cautious about his face-down card._

"Alright Steve, let's see how you handle this," Tom began, "I'll activate my first face-down card, Monster Reborn."

"You don't have anything in your graveyard strong enough to destroy my Mazera DeVille." Steve scoffed, folding his arms across his chest, clearly becoming bored with what he thought was Tom's bad attempt at getting to his lifepoints.

"With this card, I can bring back one monster from either of our graveyards, and I think I'll pick my Dark Magician!"

The face-down magic card stood up on end, and began to emanate a white glow. When Tom finally declared the name of the monster and placed it from the graveyard back onto the dueling platform, it sprang forth from inside the magic card. After his Dark Magician was standing back on the field, along side his Shinato, the magic card vanished in a shimmer of light.

"Now, I'm going to activate my second face-down card, Shadow Spell!" Tom began, pushing the button that registered for it to activate. "This trap allows me to pick one monster on your side of the field for it to ensnare and bring down by 700 attack points. Since your Mazera DeVille is the only thing left standing, I think I'll choose it."

Instantly the trap unleashed a barrage of chains that grabbed the terrifying monster by its limbs, suspending it in mid-air. The creature struggled with all its might, but eventually succumbed to its doomed fate, its attack now down to 2100.

"Now, Dark Magician, attack his Mazera DeVille!" Tom cried, but was stopped before he could finish his sentence.

"I'll activate my trap card, Waboku in order to protect my Mazera DeVille!" Steve bellowed as three women in blue robes appeared between the Dark Magician and Mazera DeVille, stopping the attack from occurring.

"Thanks to my Waboku, none of your monsters attacks will harm my creature."

"That's fine with me." Tom said, motioning that his turn was now over. _I've got him on the ropes…unless he manages to pull the miracle of all miracles out of his hat._ He thought silently as Steve began his turn again.


End file.
